Category Archives: Training Room

3 Common Event Planning Loopholes and How to Avoid Them

Even when you plan your corporate events down to the last detail, mistakes occur. Maybe it’s not a typical mistake from your end, but the scope of the event changed at the last minute, catching you off guard on the big day.

There could be a problem with your food catering, training room rental, classroom rental, or whatever. The thing is; you should be prepared for sudden changes to your plan. In fact, plan the unplanned for your foolproof success. Here are the three common last-minute hiccups to be aware of and prepare for.

1. A sudden increase in the demand for tickets

This seemingly good news could easily turn into a nightmare if you’re not prepared. Usually, you’ll have an estimate for the ticket selling. But if the demand suddenly skyrockets, you could be a deer in the headlight. So what’s the solution? It is always better to outsource your ticketing and registration to a third party that specializes in the niche. That way, you save time and energy and can rest assured that any ticketing issues will be taken care of.

2. Not enough food

Even when you hire a professional caterer, you can run out of food if more people than expected turn up on the big day. The ideal solution for this would be to look for a caterer that offers 10-15% buffer on the agreed-upon number. For instance, you order food for 100 people; your caterer will have arrangements for 115. In the event of a more-than-estimated turn-up, this could be a lifesaver.

3. Staffing issues

Volunteers and staffs notifying their unavailability at the last minute is a common problem. Grandmother fell ill, not feeling well, relative expired – whatever the reason – if your staff or volunteers let you down at the last moment, it could be a disaster. One good antidote would be to have a reserve bench ready, in case you’d need them.

Of course, there are many more event planning issues that might pop up at the last minute, and we’ll cover more of them. So please stay tuned.

3 More Tips to Develop Persuasive Skills in Sales

All great persuaders understand human psychology. But here’s the thing. You don’t need a degree in psychology to be a master persuader. Great salespeople are master persuaders but most of them probably didn’t read hundred books on the topic. They learned from experience corporate training sessions.

If you think your sales team lacks persuasive skills, you can rent training room or rent classroom to provide them training on how to develop persuasive skills. Here are some ideas.

1. Use the power of reciprocity

It’s human nature to reciprocate. If you treat someone well, chances are that they’ll treat you equally well. If you do someone a favor, they’ll typically want to return the favor. Along similar lines, if you help your customers find the right solution for them, they’ll probably reciprocate by buying stuff from you.

2. Show authority

One way to have more customers follow you is by establishing your brand as an authority in the niche. You can do this simply by offering valuable advice to your target audience without expecting something in return. This requires constant researching, studying, and keeping updated with the market trends. Perhaps your salespeople are too busy to spend so much time on market research. That’s exactly why you need to organize training sessions for them from time to time, so that they can know the latest trends without having to go through the rigorous market survey.

3. Use social proof

Skepticism is a big barrier in sales. In this day and age when marketing shows even a bad product in good light, people are more skeptical about any claim than ever before. Most people now read customer reviews and testimonials before making a buying decision. If your product has a good track record, you should use social proofs to hook more customers to your store. It is by far the easiest and most effective way to convince people to buy from you.

How to Help Develop Persuasive Skills in Your Sales Team

Persuasion is critical to sales and it has always been so, but the strategies for persuasion have changed with time. Today, for instance, direct persuasion (AKA had sold) doesn’t work. (When was the last time you’re convinced by a nagging salesperson?)

The truth is – persuasion is a skill and your salespeople need developing/updating it from time to time. If that requires booking training room rental or seminar room rental, so be it. Without effective persuasion, your sales endeavor would never come to fruition. Here are some tips on how to train your salespeople to be more persuasive.

1. Do the planning

In the planning stage, you need to know more about the individual or organization you want to persuade. Know their needs, wants and pain points. If possible, research their buying history, purchasing behavior and decision-making process. When you’ve enough information about a potential buyer, it would be easier to plan an effective persuasive strategy for each customer.

2. Win their trust

People do business with people they trust. But how would you go about winning the trust of your potential buyers? One way to do so is by showing them that you care more about helping them and less about selling a product. For instance, you may consider offering free trials or discounts for first-time buyers. Offering them value first is a proven way to win the trust of your customers.

3. Create scarcity

Demand soars when the supply plummets. Scarcity makes things desirable. You can use this as a strategy for persuasion. Most effective sales pitches create a sense of urgency. It is like telling the audience, “If you don’t act now, you’ll lose.” Nothing works better than the fear of losing. However, make sure that the product you’re selling does offer value to your customers. Otherwise, your persuasion skills would not help give you long-term results.

3 More Tips for Training Your Gen Y Sales Team

You know that your millennial salespeople have a short attention span, but that should not stop you from successfully training them. You can still make your sales training programs effective simply by keeping the sessions short.

The good news is; despite the “jellyfish” attention span, the Gen Y people are quick to learn. So maybe instead of a one-hour lecture, give a five-minute video presentation. When you rent training room or rent classroom, make sure the room has all the necessary equipment and modern facilities. Here are some more tips on training the new generation salespeople.

1. Foster collaboration

The Gen Y loves to share and work together. So you don’t have to give lectures on the importance of breaking work silos. They already know the benefits. All you need is to create an environment where collaboration can thrive. Even in your training sessions, encourage peer-to-peer training and mentoring.

2. Offer incentives

While money is not key driver for most millennial salespeople, instant gratification is. From fast food to Uber service, the new generation is used to getting everything immediately. They don’t want to hustle or wait too long for a reward. While you can set a long-term goal for them, make sure they also get incentives along the way.

3. Give them more flexibility

Not everyone learns the same way. Different people have different ways to learn. The new generation salespeople are more reluctant to accept any set rule for learning. You need to give them the flexibility, so they can learn at their own pace. Plan your training programs in a way that does not require everyone to follow the same path. The more flexible your training program is the more chance it has to be effective for most attendees. Keep this mind when designing your sales training programs.

How to Train Your Gen Y Sales Team

Millennial salespeople have a different mindset. Most entrepreneurs fail to understand that mindset and that’s exactly why they struggle with training their Gen Y sales team. But it doesn’t have to be that way for you.

Before you book training room rental or classroom rental for your next sales training event, do some research. Knowing a few things about how the new generation thinks can make a huge difference in your approach to training them. Here are some tips.

1. Know what motivates them

Guess what? It’s not the fat paycheck. Most people in their 20s are now staying with their parents. They are in no hurry to get married and raise kids. For most of them, making an impact is more important than making more money. They find it more fulfilling to give back to the community. In order to motivate your Gen Y salespeople, you should focus more on things like how your product or service is going to make the world a better place and less on how much money they can make in the process.

2. Help them learn more

Perhaps your Gen Y sales team has some members who are over-qualified for the job. That’s because most parents nowadays leave no stone unturned to educate their kids. As a result, you’ll find entry-level sales executives constantly looking to learn more. They want to know the ‘why’ of everything. As long as you can satiate their quest for more knowledge, they’ll do anything for the job. So arrange more training sessions. Help them learn and grow.

3. Give constructive feedback

How you give the feedback matters a lot. Yes, it should be constructive feedback. The Gen Y kids have been getting pats on their shoulder all through their school or college. You need to continue the trend. Be nice to them even when you’re giving them a negative feedback.

More Ways to Train Your Salespeople on Suggestive Selling

Suggestive selling is when you suggest your customers to buy more or gently push them to upgrade. It’s like a hidden economy that often remains unfound to most businesses.

But it comes with a caveat. If you do it the wrong way, you can even lose your original sales. That’s why it is very important to train your sales team on suggestive selling. If you’re up for the challenge, it is time for you to rent training room or rent seminar room. We already covered the basics of how to train cross-selling. Here are some more tips.

1. First add value then ask
This should be the mantra of every sales team. Cross-selling or up-selling is no different. Train your salespeople to add value first. How can you do that? It’s simple. You need a simple a mindset shift. Rather than seeing your customers as ATM machines, see them as humans. Genuinely try to help them. Talk to them to know what exactly they’re looking for. Once you know that, see how you can help them. If you see they have the budget and willingness to buy a better product, only then you should show them a higher-price product.

2. Use the “Rule of 3”
The ‘Rule of 3’ is a thumb rule that says you should show your customer three different products in the same category. Alright, let’s explain this. Let’s say the customer chooses the product A. Then you need to show her Product B and Product C. Product B is what you want to sell. And Product C has almost similar features to Product B, but it is way more expensive. That means you’re showing the customer that Product-B the best deal, because it costs slightly higher than Product A, but offers greater value. On the other hand, although Product C offers almost similar values, it is very expensive. That makes Product B the clear winner.

How to Train Your Salespeople on Up-Selling and Cross-Selling

It may sound counterintuitive, but often your customers don’t know what they really want.

And that’s an opportunity for you – an opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell. For instance, if your customer chooses to buy a trouser, you can suggest them a matching t-shirt (cross-selling). Or if they pick a $70 shirt, you can show them a better product in the same category, at $100.

While suggestive selling (AKA cross-selling/up-selling) is a good way to maximize your revenues from each customer, your sales reps need to know the art, for it to work.

One good idea would be training them. However, just booking training room rentals or seminar room rentals is not enough. Here are some tips.

1. Get the timing right
The first thing to train is the timing. When your customers come to your store, don’t immediately approach them. Give them enough time to settle in and take their own picks. Meanwhile, your sales executive can simply follow instructions. Once the customer had made up her mind, now is the time to unsettle them again. Show them a higher-end product or suggest them to add an additional item. Wait for them to open up to you, before you approach them. That’s the recipe for a successful deal.

2. Improve product knowledge
Encourage your salespeople to know the products inside out. If that requires providing training to them, so be it. Without thorough product knowledge, your salespeople wouldn’t even know what to suggest.

3. Develop listening skills
One common mistake most salespeople make is that they talk too much, almost pushing the customer to the mute mode. You need to do the opposite. Allow (in fact encourage) your customers to talk more. The more you listen the more you get to know them – their preferences, budget, etc. Now you can easily figure out the what and the how.

3 More Ideas for Training Your Customer Service Team

Your customer service representatives should have good communication, persuasion and listening skills, among others. The good news is these skills can be nurtured and developed through training.

If you are planning to rent training room or rent classroom for your customer service training, you may be interested in knowing a few things about how to maximize the impact of the training sessions. So here are 3 more ideas for training your customer service team.

1. Sessions on avoiding the ‘NO’ word
While you don’t have a solution to every customer problem, there’s a better way to decline any client request. Saying “NO” on the face is not going to make your customers super-pleased. So how can you decline them without actually pronouncing the word “NO?” Well, some people can do this better than the others. This is a skill can be learned. So organize a training session where you can train your customer service team how to avoid the negative word. You can divide your team into two parts, with one team playing the role of customers and anther playing customer service representatives. After the session is over, review performance of both teams and give them feedback, wherever necessary.

2. Help improve their online communication
If you’re running an online business, chances are that most your customer interactions occur via email and chat messages. That means your customer service representatives need to have great email communication skills. You can rent classroom to train the basics of email and chat messaging. Remember, written communication is a whole new ball game.

3. Organize improvisation classes
Improvisation is the ability to think on your feet. Not everyone is born with this skill. But one can improve their ability to improvise through practice. That’s why you need to organize improvisation classes for your customer service team from time to time.

How to Train Your Customer Service Team

Customer service representatives are the face of your company. Whether they interact with your customers face-to-face, over the phone or via chat messages, their style of communication plays a major role in shaping your brand’s perception in the customer’s mind. No wonder top companies spend top dollars to provide training to their customer service representatives. But, before booking your training room rentals or classroom rentals for customer service training, consider learning the below tips.

Record customer interactions

Every day, your customer service representatives handle a large number of customers. Some of those interactions may go wrong. It is important to look back at those to see what went wrong. For instance, if you’ve recorded conversions between an irate customer and your service representatives, you can later sit with your team to show them where they could have asked a different question or used their listening skills or showed a little empathy in order to create more positive outcomes.

Have your customer service teams play memory games

Calling your customers by their names can make a whole lot of difference. But understand that your customer service executives interact with hundreds of customers every day. Remembering everyone’s name is an uphill task. That’s exactly why you should encourage them to play memory games as part of their training.

Use mock calls for the training

One way to improve the telephone skills your team is by training them through mock calls. For instance, your new employees can play the role of a telephone operator, while your seasoned callers can play the role of an unhappy customer. Let the conversation happen and then review the whole thing to find out areas where the trainee could have done better. It is also important to give proper and timely feedback about each training session. Otherwise, their learning remains incomplete. You can also involve some of your management staff in the review process.

3 More Tips to Make People Attend Your Event

As an event planner, you may wonder how your competitors can always pull more people to their events than you can, even when you mimic their exact steps. Maybe they have some invisible tactics! Yes, you’re right! Often the secret sauce to success is “secret.” It remains invisible to the world. It’s not that your competitors are deliberately hiding anything. In most cases, the top performers don’t know what they are doing right. They are just doing it. Want to know the invisible tactics to draw more people to your event? Read the below tips.

1. Go the extra mile to know your audience

It’s easy to think that you already know your audience, but perhaps there are gaps your knowledge. Do some research; ask questions; read online to know more about your target audience. You need to know their demographic, pain points, job profile, event attendance history, hobbies, favorite social media platforms, etc. Armed with this information, now you can craft a tailored marketing strategy for each audience group. For instance, students and seasoned professionals often don’t use the same social media platforms. So you need to target the right people at the right place with the right message.

2. Include more games and social programs

Even if you’re planning a corporate event, use games and social programs to attract more people to come the event. Human beings are social animals. We love games, gossiping, and social interactions. Your corporate event attendees are no different. So rent training room or rent seminar room in a city where you can take your guests to city sightseeing tours. Plan cocktail dinners for them.

3. Show them proofs

Just telling them that your event will change their personal or professional life is not enough. People are too skeptical these days! Show them the proof. If you had organized similar events earlier, dug up the stats and show them what percentage of the attendees achieved their desired results as a result of attending your event. Any numbers or reviews that showcase your credibility must be shared with them.